At 3:50pm this afternoon, I had the pleasure of taking out the new 640i convertible avec salesman. You'll have to excuse the distinct lack of pictures, the car I drove was the managing directors of the dealership and I didn't really have a lot of time with it (an hour or so).
So, where to begin (epic wall of text approaching)?
Size, it's a big old car, easily 5 series dimensions, 5mm shorter in fact (and heavier too as you would expect from the convertible @ 1900kg). However, inside there is little leg room behind the driver (I'm 6ft 3) and you feel quite cramped. Sure, you'd get a small adult or large child in there, but that's it. The layout of the dash is slightly different to the F10 5er with the iDrive controller being annoyingly slanted away from you, making it easier for your passenger to play with rather than the driver. A nice intutive system which is now rolled out across most of the new BMW ranges. The monitor on the other hand, as impressive to display even in the brightest light, looked like someone had wedged it in to a small gap on the top of the dash. It just didn't sit right, not in a nice binnacle like the E60 or F10. The new Z4 is also guilty of this.
Equipment, this car had head up display, comfort access, rear parking camera (std, I think), Pro Media pack, beige leather, efficent dynamics, radar cruise, adaptive drive, speed limit display (part of HUD). There was probably very little from the options list I would add to the cars standard spec. A very cossetting interior, comfy seats and wedged in nicely, again, really making you feel like you were in a much smaller car than you were.
Engine: This was the 640i, a 6 cylinder single turbo mated to an 8 speed auto steptronic. This pulls in around 320hp and 450Nm of torque with a 5.7s to 60mph sprint. A great sounding engine, but only really when pushed. It was a bit of an anticlimax in terms of noise and really felt like it needed a good old cheery bomb on there to liven it up. There was a horrible amount of delay/lag when pulling out of junctions, even with the box in sport mode 1st gear. It just seemed to know that it was lugging 2tons worth of metal around and wasn't at all fussed about the bus coming towards it. Stretch it out on the dual carriageway and the engine and gearbox come together like two lovers on honeymoon after a sex embargo. Just a sheer wall of power and noise. It gets a little tiring in sport mode, pulling the paddles eight times, and again, I found myself using the paddles all of twice before resorting back to the good old gear stick. Perhaps that is just my driving style and I might eventually warm to paddles given the opportunity.
Ride / Chassis: Ok I guess, steering was electronic and it felt crap around town but fine out on the good roads giving a nice weight when pushed through the corners. This specific car was on run flats and surprisingly they didn't give me too much grief, although you did feel the car squirm a bit in the corners. This car also has the Comfort/Normal/Sport/Sport + settings. I tried all of them. Sport was harsh, normal was the best setting. Gear changes in sport jolted you especially high up the rev range. With the roof down, the car felt bigger and noise wasn't too bad even rolling up to the 75-80mph mark. Rear passengers would be hard to hear you even with the electric rear window in the "up" position. Pressing back, we had the roof up and it was audiably windy at 70<mph, but I guess this is to be expected. No crappy rattles from the roof though around town unlike the new Z4 I drove a year or so back.
This model also had Efficient Dynamics. One of only a few automatic models in the BMW range with the Auto Stop/Start feature. It was annoying, I turned it off (or leave the gearstick in sport mode to disable). Oddly, there was a very slight hint of rattle at engine start up but yes, certainly far smoother and quieter than my E60 530d.
I reset the mpg OBD on my journey which was a mix of A/B roads and dual carriageway. Also stuck in some pretty sucky easter holidy traffic. Rolled back to the dealer with 22.4mpg. That's not too bad at all.
All in all, quite impressed, not £66k (base) impressed though. I will definately be rolling back there in September when the Coupe is available (priced @ £60k base).
I asked for a slightly longer test drive but the sales guy said they'd haev to check with the managing director (his car). If it's a go, I'll be sure to ping some pics up.
Any questions, feel free
So, where to begin (epic wall of text approaching)?
Size, it's a big old car, easily 5 series dimensions, 5mm shorter in fact (and heavier too as you would expect from the convertible @ 1900kg). However, inside there is little leg room behind the driver (I'm 6ft 3) and you feel quite cramped. Sure, you'd get a small adult or large child in there, but that's it. The layout of the dash is slightly different to the F10 5er with the iDrive controller being annoyingly slanted away from you, making it easier for your passenger to play with rather than the driver. A nice intutive system which is now rolled out across most of the new BMW ranges. The monitor on the other hand, as impressive to display even in the brightest light, looked like someone had wedged it in to a small gap on the top of the dash. It just didn't sit right, not in a nice binnacle like the E60 or F10. The new Z4 is also guilty of this.
Equipment, this car had head up display, comfort access, rear parking camera (std, I think), Pro Media pack, beige leather, efficent dynamics, radar cruise, adaptive drive, speed limit display (part of HUD). There was probably very little from the options list I would add to the cars standard spec. A very cossetting interior, comfy seats and wedged in nicely, again, really making you feel like you were in a much smaller car than you were.
Engine: This was the 640i, a 6 cylinder single turbo mated to an 8 speed auto steptronic. This pulls in around 320hp and 450Nm of torque with a 5.7s to 60mph sprint. A great sounding engine, but only really when pushed. It was a bit of an anticlimax in terms of noise and really felt like it needed a good old cheery bomb on there to liven it up. There was a horrible amount of delay/lag when pulling out of junctions, even with the box in sport mode 1st gear. It just seemed to know that it was lugging 2tons worth of metal around and wasn't at all fussed about the bus coming towards it. Stretch it out on the dual carriageway and the engine and gearbox come together like two lovers on honeymoon after a sex embargo. Just a sheer wall of power and noise. It gets a little tiring in sport mode, pulling the paddles eight times, and again, I found myself using the paddles all of twice before resorting back to the good old gear stick. Perhaps that is just my driving style and I might eventually warm to paddles given the opportunity.
Ride / Chassis: Ok I guess, steering was electronic and it felt crap around town but fine out on the good roads giving a nice weight when pushed through the corners. This specific car was on run flats and surprisingly they didn't give me too much grief, although you did feel the car squirm a bit in the corners. This car also has the Comfort/Normal/Sport/Sport + settings. I tried all of them. Sport was harsh, normal was the best setting. Gear changes in sport jolted you especially high up the rev range. With the roof down, the car felt bigger and noise wasn't too bad even rolling up to the 75-80mph mark. Rear passengers would be hard to hear you even with the electric rear window in the "up" position. Pressing back, we had the roof up and it was audiably windy at 70<mph, but I guess this is to be expected. No crappy rattles from the roof though around town unlike the new Z4 I drove a year or so back.
This model also had Efficient Dynamics. One of only a few automatic models in the BMW range with the Auto Stop/Start feature. It was annoying, I turned it off (or leave the gearstick in sport mode to disable). Oddly, there was a very slight hint of rattle at engine start up but yes, certainly far smoother and quieter than my E60 530d.
I reset the mpg OBD on my journey which was a mix of A/B roads and dual carriageway. Also stuck in some pretty sucky easter holidy traffic. Rolled back to the dealer with 22.4mpg. That's not too bad at all.
All in all, quite impressed, not £66k (base) impressed though. I will definately be rolling back there in September when the Coupe is available (priced @ £60k base).
I asked for a slightly longer test drive but the sales guy said they'd haev to check with the managing director (his car). If it's a go, I'll be sure to ping some pics up.
Any questions, feel free
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